Millsite Steel & Wire Works Promotional 3 Pack

This Millsite Steel & Wire Works Promotional 3 Pack is complete with 3 different intro Model 1940 Rattle Bugs. Model Number 903R, 905R & 907R, make up this unheard of package. If there is one box that is considered rare and tough to find it is this ivory colored box with top printed with Millsite FIshing Tackle, Howell Michigan. I know of 2 other boxes like this. Since there is no record of this being sold through Millsite catalogs or advertising, it is generally thought that it was made up in very limited quantities as a promotional gift for various reps and fellow attendees at trade shows. Jack Withey , the inventor was a regular attendee of shows and activities like sportsman dinners. I have a copy of a Boston Dinner menu that Withey attended with other tackle manufactures and it is autographed with several people who thanked Jack for the Rattle Bugs.

From the Amazing Collection of Steve Lumpkin who authored the 2009 Millsite Fishing Tackle . Most of his collection is in excellent condition, many in their original container. If the lot is picture in his book, there will be a notation that can be seen and on what page or pages. This is an opportunity for you to own a lure pictured in a collector book.

The Millsite Steel and Wire Works Company draws from roots inside the American fishing industry from over a century ago. At the surface most think that it was in the late 1930s, that Jack Whitey breathed life into what would become a household name known by anglers far and wide. However the roots of the company are seated in 1911 to a widely popular fish stringer Patent number 1,004,324 that was granted to two gentlemen Louis Watkins and H.J Wickman of the Wickman Wire Works, & Later the Watkins Mfg Co. These two pioneers of the Howell Michigan region would be the base from which the “Keep Em Alive” Stringer would be born.

Jack Withey is given credit for the companies second chance at making a big splash with anglers. At the time in the 1930’s Fishing Mogals, Heddon, Creek Chub, Shakespeare would all experiment and begin production or products from extruded plastics. With a few of these companies being rather close to the Howell Plant its no wonder that Jack after his purchase of the Beetle Bug Bait Company, owned by KL Steen, he then would expand into Eastman Kodaks Tenite Cellulosic plastic and plastic extrusion. With the companies expertise in it manufacturing of Wire Products, both stringers & Beetles the late 1930s would add to it such classics as the Rattle Bug the Paddle Plug, the indestructible 99R even into plastic extruded fly boxes. They would close their doors on as the Millsite Steel & Wire Work in February of 1942. After WWII in 1946 the company was purchased from the founders wife, and would make the final shift into the Millsite Tackle Company. Along with the lures the only metal product produced being fish stringers and chains they would last until 1976, with the chapter ending its 64 year run of producing items for the American Angler.